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Varsity Letters
December 5, 2007
Gelf's Varsity Letters: 12/6 Interviews
The three sportswriters featured on the front page will be speaking spoke at a free Gelf event in New York on Thursday, December 6, at 8 p.m. Come by Thanks for coming by the Happy Ending Lounge to hear writers Stewart Mandel, Wright Thompson, and Todd Gallagher read from and discuss their writing. (UPDATE: Aaron Schatz is ill and won't be able to attend.)
Politics
December 3, 2007
Be Patriotic. It's the Law.
Last week, the Thai parliament started discussions on a proposed new law that would require drivers to stop and observe the national anthem when it is played twice a day. While it's a rather eccentric and impractical way to try to boost national pride, the bill is certainly not the only unconventional example of forced patriotism in recent years. Please remove your hat and put your hand over your heart, as Gelf reviews some of the odder cases.
Arts
November 27, 2007
Plagiarism at The New Yorker?
In one Seinfeld episode, Elaine becomes frustrated with the arcane humor behind many New Yorker cartoons, so she decides to draw her own. The cartoon—which involves a pig at a complaint department declaring "I wish I was taller"—is accepted, but Elaine is later outed as an inadvertent Ziggy plagiarizer. It appears a similar cribbing has appeared in the most recent Cartoon Issue of the magazine.
Varsity Letters
November 21, 2007
December 6: Gelf's Varsity Letters
New York's Varsity Letters sports reading series returns on Thursday, December 6 at 8 p.m. At this free monthly event at a Lower East Side bar, hosted by Gelf, Stewart Mandel, Aaron Schatz, Wright Thompson, and Todd Gallagher will read from and talk about their work, and take questions. Just in time for bowl season, Mandel breaks down college-football controversy; Schatz explores pro football's hidden numbers; Thompson shares his story of visiting Augusta National in memory of his father; and Gallagher takes on sports fans' burning questions.
Arts
November 20, 2007
When Greatest Hits Aren't
The Greatest Hits album has long been a cash cow for the record industry. With the holiday season fast approaching, every band seems to be repackaging their singles and chart-not-quite-toppers into a once-in-a-lifetime chance to have them all on one CD! With decreasing profits from lackluster artists and—as they never cease to remind us—internet piracy, the labels are getting pretty desperate. Here are some recent examples of attempts to cash in with very little effort.
Sports
November 17, 2007
Indictment Pleases Bonds Biographer
With Barry Bonds indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice, Gelf turned to Jeff Pearlman for some insight. Pearlman, Bonds's biographer, spoke to Gelf last year about the controversial slugger. He explains why the indictment brings him pleasure, and predicts the end of Bonds's career, in the interview after the jump.
Media
November 16, 2007
Who Deserves Anonymity?
A few days ago, the St. Charles Journal, a small newspaper in Missouri, published an article about Megan Meier, a 13-year-old who committed suicide after receiving hurtful messages from her MySpace crush. The story was particularly explosive because it turns out that the crush was a horrible hoax conjured up by adults—including the mother of one of Megan's former friends.
Sports
November 15, 2007
Superman Dat Ho
In the most recent Sports Illustrated, there's a hilarious short article about 17-year-old rapper Soulja Boy's song "Crank That," which is played as a motivational anthem at stadia around the country. The song contains the phrase "Superman dat ho," which apparently has a lewd connotation that most teams' public-relations officials aren't aware of. According to the article, "It's widely known among younger Soulja Boy fans that Superman, in the context of the song, is slang for a sexual act that cannot be described on the pages of SI."
Arts
November 14, 2007
Word to Ya Mama
Donda West has died. Or, translated to current press parlance, Kanye's lost his mama. Of course, the media's obsession with adopting cutesy or crass language is nothing new, but it can be exasperating. In memory of Kanye's late mama—whom he so extolled on Late Registration's, uh, "Hey Mama"—we've compiled a brief catalog of songs inspired by or created uniquely for the hip-hop mother.
Full article » | by Adam Rosen
Sports
November 14, 2007
Why Don't Major League Players Die?
Despite the recent and high-profile deaths of Corey Lidle and Josh Hancock, being an active Major League Baseball player is one of the best ways to protect yourself from the reaper. You're around three times less likely to die than someone else your age. While the rest of the 20- to 35-year-old American population keels over at a rate of 0.09% per year, baseball players only die at a rate of 0.03% per year. In fact, only seven out of more than 20,000 active players have died since Yankees catcher Thurman Munson crashed his plane in 1979.
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